All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

VEM comigo! — Pensamentos.me/VEM comigo!

” A Arte é um olhar sobre a vida, sobre o tempo e os acontecimentos. A arte nos ajuda refletir sobre o passo de si mesmo”. Marii Freire Pereira https://pensamentos.me/ VEM comigo! Imagem: bcn_is_ live. Museu Nacional d’Arte de catalunya/ Instagram Santarém, Pá 5 de fevereiro de 2021

VEM comigo! — Pensamentos.me/VEM comigo!

California sea lions are dying from cancer and the cause may impact humans soon too

More and more sea lions native to California are developing and eventually dying from cancer. The reason why? Environmental toxins in their living environment. However, this disturbing trend isn’t just relevant to these seafaring mammals. California sea lions

SAUSALITO, Calif. — More and more sea lions native to California are developing and eventually dying from cancer. The reason why? Environmental toxins in their living environment. However, this disturbing trend isn’t just relevant to these seafaring mammals. Researchers from The Marine Mammal Center say if pollutants and contaminants continue to fill the California ecosystem, it’s…

The post California sea lions are dying from cancer and the cause may impact humans soon too appeared first on Study Finds.

Singapore Spying on Students’ Laptops

The Singaporean government should reverse the rule, which poses significant risks to children’s freedom of expression, privacy, and access to information. Instead, the government should consider investing more resources into strengthening digital literacy to empower children to navigate the internet critically, confidently, and safely.

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A student uses a laptop for schoolwork while participating in remote learning, September 7, 2020.
© 2020 Press Association via AP Images

Singapore’s Education Ministry has made it mandatory for secondary school students to install tracking and remote access software on all laptops issued under a national digital literacy program, and on students’ personal devices that are used to attend classes online during Covid-19 related school closures.

The software allows school officials and teachers to go through a student’s web search history and remotely “view student screens [and] close distracting tabs” in order to “restrict access to objectionable material,” both during and outside of school hours. It also allows teachers to restrict the amount of time students use their devices.

The rule lacks safeguards to protect against intrusions into children’s private lives. Schools have broad discretion in deciding which websites to block or search terms to flag, without needing to inform parents or students. In a country known for its severe restrictions on the right to freedom of expression, including on issues of race, religion, and LGBT rights, the lack of definition over what constitutes “objectionable material,” and the lack of transparency in how these decisions are made, undermines children’s ability to speak freely and access information.

At a time when children and families have increasingly gone online to support children’s learning, socialization, and play, the compulsory installation of digital surveillance tools on personal devices is a deep reach into students’ homes and personal lives, at all hours. It also risks disproportionately affecting the privacy of low-income families, where children often share a single device with parents and siblings for work, study, and connection.

More than 6,500 students, parents, and others have joined a student-led petition calling on the Education Ministry not to install the software on students’ personal devices.

The Singaporean government should reverse the rule, which poses significant risks to children’s freedom of expression, privacy, and access to information. Instead, the government should consider investing more resources into strengthening digital literacy to empower children to navigate the internet critically, confidently, and safely.

How Scientists Shot Down Cancer’s ‘Death Star’ – The New York Times

Amgen’s drug is not as drastically effective as some new cancer medicines, said Dr. Bruce Johnson, the chief clinical research officer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. But in combination with other drugs, those targeting specific mutations can change the course of the disease in many patients, he added.

For example, drugs targeting specific mutations in melanoma patients at first seemed unimpressive, but when combined with other medicines, they eventually changed prospects for patients with this deadly disease.

“The more I looked at it, the more optimistic I became,” Dr. Johnson said of Amgen’s new data.

While the KRAS G12C mutation is most common in lung cancer, it also occurs in other cancers, especially in colorectal cancer, where it is found in up to 3 percent of tumors, and particularly in pancreatic cancer. Ninety percent of those patients carry the mutation.